New Poll: US Military Occupations Supported By Far More Democrats Than Republicans

A new Politico/Morning Consult poll has found that there is much more support for ongoing military occupations among Democrats surveyed than Republicans.

To the question “As you may know, President Trump ordered an immediate withdrawal of more than 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria. Based on what you know, do you support or oppose President Trump’s decision?”, 29 percent of Democrats responded either “Somewhat support” or “Strongly support”, while 50 percent responded either “Somewhat oppose” or “Strongly oppose”. Republicans asked the same question responded with 73 percent either somewhat or strongly supporting and only 17 percent either somewhat or strongly opposing.

Those surveyed were also asked the question “As you may know, President Trump ordered the start of a reduction of U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, with about half of the approximately 14,000 U.S. troops there set to begin returning home in the near future. Based on what you know, do you support or oppose President Trump’s decision?” Forty percent of Democrats responded as either “Somewhat support” or “strongly support”, with 41 percent either somewhat or strongly opposing. Seventy-six percent of Republicans, in contrast, responded as either somewhat or strongly supporting Trump’s decision, while only 15 percent oppose it to any extent.

These results will be truly shocking and astonishing to anyone who has been in a coma since the Bush administration. For anyone who has been paying attention since then, however, especially for the last two years, this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.

Depressing that 30%+ fewer Democrats than Republicans support withdrawal from Syria and Afghanistan. (See thread). A clear byproduct of two years of Clockwork Orange-style indoctrination by MSNBC’s wall to wall lineup of spooks & neocons selling war thru partisan identity. https://t.co/K1yevED6lH

This didn’t happen by itself, and it didn’t happen by accident. American liberals didn’t just spontaneously start thinking endless military occupations of sovereign nations is a great idea yesterday, nor have they always been so unquestioningly supportive of the agendas of the US war machine. No, Democrats support the unconscionable bloodbaths that their government is inflicting around the world because they have been deliberately, methodically paced into that belief structure by an intensive mass media propaganda campaign.

After Clinton managed to botch the most winnable election of all time, mainstream liberal America was plunged into a panic that has been fueled at every turn by the plutocratic mass media, which have seized upon unthinking cultish anti-Trumpism to advance the cause of US military interventionism even further with campaigns like the sanctification of John McCain and the rehabilitation of George W Bush. Trump is constantly attacked as being too soft on Moscow despite having already dangerously escalated a new cold war against Russia which some experts are saying is more dangerous than the one the world miraculously survived. Trump’s occasional positive impulses, like the agenda to withdraw US troops from Syria and Afghanistan, are painted as weakness and foolishness by the intelligence veterans who now comprise so much of corporate liberal media punditry. And their audience laps it up because by now mainstream liberals have been trained to have far more interest in opposing Trump than in opposing war.

And how sick is that? Obviously Trump has advanced a lot of toxic agendas which need to be ferociously opposed, but how warped does your mind have to be to make a religion out of that opposition which is so all-consuming that it eclipses even the natural impulse to avoid inflicting death and destruction upon your fellow man? How viciously has the psyche of American liberals been brutalized with mass media psyops to drive them into this psychotic, twisted reality tunnel?

There was one group in the aforementioned survey which was not nearly as affected by the propaganda as armchair liberals. To the statement “The U.S. has been engaged in too many military conflicts in places such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan for too long, and should prioritize getting Americans out of harm’s way,” military households responded 54 percent that this statement aligns with their view. Turns out when it’s your own family’s blood and limbs on the line, people are a lot less willing to commit to endless violence. Sixty percent of Republicans agreed with this statement, while only 41 percent of Democrats did.

Could these statistics have something to do with the fact that younger veterans are statistically much more likely to be Republicans than Democrats? Is it possible that a major reason Trump beat Hillary Clinton, and a major reason Republicans are now far less bloodthirsty than Democrats, is because mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers are tired of flag-draped coffins being shipped home containing bodies which were ripped apart for no legitimate reason in senseless military entanglements on the other side of the world? Seems likely. And it also seems likely that the mass media propaganda machine is having a harder time steering people toward war once they’ve personally tasted its true cost.

Latest comments

Truman was a war president. As very much was Lyndon Johnson. Clinton too. And Obama. And we could go back and add Woodrow Wilson.

All of them Democrats and all of them killed lots of people.

The truth has always been that both American parties are just wings of the establishment imperial party.

And references to “liberals” when you are talking about America seem a bit silly to me.

There are virtually no liberals in America.

Elizabeth Warren, for example, voted for the obscene Pentagon budget, makes hostile and unwarranted comments about an Iran that has never started a war and scrupulously abides by the nuclear agreement.

Trump designs his narratives particularly to solidify his base among Rural Americans. He knows that the electoral college gives dramatically extra weight to rural voters, so that if he fully captures the rural vote, he will be practically impossible to beat for President.

What non-Rural voters don’t often understand about Rural America is the incredible lack of economic opportunity that awaits each new generation of Rural Americans. And that joining the military is often one of the only pathways for Rural folks to take in order to attain a secure financial future.

Why is this incredibly important?

Trump has a hard time keeping many of his positions consistent. But his two biggest positions regarding the military are amazingly consistent: 1) Give more money to the military. 2) Withdraw from unwinnable wars.

You’d think that those two positions would be mutually exclusive to some degree.

But not if you are hell bent on controlling Rural America’s impact on the Electoral College!

Chucknobomb/January 12, 2019

inforebelscum/January 13, 2019

Chuck, yup, except AIPAC owns the entirety of the US not just its media. The US is simply globalist zionism’s War Department. Get the US out of the Middle East (and everywhere else) and zionism out of the US.

F. Foundling/January 11, 2019

Wait until a Republican president is decidedly hawkish and just watch how the Republicans will cheer for him then. . “Could these statistics have something to do with the fact that younger veterans are statistically much more likely to be Republicans than Democrats? … because mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers are tired of flag-draped coffins being shipped home …” . Nah, it’s the other way round. The very reason why younger veterans are statistically much more likely to be Republicans is that Republicans are more likely to have enlisted in the first place, and that, in turn, is because they are more likely to be OK with chauvinism, militarism and imperialism. And the overwhelming majority of Republicans are not veterans, so they can’t be affected by that. They just stand by their president, just like the Democrats stood by theirs. Foreign policy is, to both parties, just a pretext to attack each other along partisan lines; in a way, I have come to think that most Americans do not really, in the depth of their souls, believe in the existence of foreigners or of a world outside of the US, which explains why they are not afraid of causing a nuclear war as a side effect of their petty political squabbling. . It’s definitely not true that Republicans are less bloodthirsty than Democrats. Mainstream Republicans and mainstream Democrats are both imperialists and supporters of American exceptionalism, and their leaders end up doing similar things, but Republicans have, overall, significantly less humane attitudes towards foreigners, just like they have far significantly less humane attitudes towards their own fellow citizens. They don’t care about poorer, more dark-skinned or generally different humans abroad any more than they care about poorer, more dark-skinned or generally different humans at home. . While both parties are responsibly committed to American imperial supremacy, it is still the case that to sell war to the Democratic base, the machine needs to lie about humanitarian concerns, human rights, democracy, etc. Since its fear of the spread of socialism has subsided, the bulk of the Republican base is motivated only by ‘the national interest’, pure tribal chauvinism, collective narcissism and xenophobia. The same goes for selling peace: ‘let’s not kill people, kumbayah’ vs ‘we have no profit to gain there, folks’. . Republican administrations are significantly more inclined to use brute force instead of diplomacy, to act unilaterally and in an insolently self-serving manner, and to openly violate international law. Trump, while objecting to the Iraq war and the new cold war, promised torture, greater brutality, including going after the families of terrorists, because that’s what the Republican base likes. . In a sense, the fall of the Democrats is worse, because they are the ones from whom one could have had any reason to expect something better. It was very disappointing to see how seemingly decent people who had, for years, criticised Obama for his militarism and neoliberalism then went on to support HRC, who would obviously be even worse than him, against Sanders, who was the only candidate remotely likely to represent a noticeable change for the better on any of the issues that they had claimed to care about. And, of course, the political landscape has only been getting exponentially worse since that time.

Greg/January 12, 2019

“…s, but Republicans have, overall, significantly less humane attitudes towards foreigners, just like they have far significantly less humane attitudes towards their own fellow citizens. They don’t care about poorer, more dark-skinned or generally different humans abroad any more than they care about poorer, more dark-skinned or generally different humans at home.”

My goodness such statements completely baffle me. Your diatribe is populated by similar broad generalizations. You unknowingly exemplify some of judgements you offer here? Despair is contagious please seek help.

John Gaylord/January 12, 2019

Replace the word “have” with “had” and I think all of F. Foundling’s generalizations are completely true. Accusing them of “exemplifying” their judgments is an undeserved bad rap. Rather than making comparisons, I would simply say the D’s and R’s are now one and the same with respect to foreign policy.

Lawrence/January 13, 2019

“I have come to think that most Americans do not really, in the depth of their souls, believe in the existence of foreigners or of a world outside of the US, which explains why they are not afraid of causing a nuclear war as a side effect of their petty political squabbling.”

An excellent point that deserves much more space than just three lines!

When I was in high school a graduation certificate required two years of foreign language study. Lots of foreign exchange students went both ways and there was a broader interest in foreign countries, though nothing like the interests foreigners have in the US. I didn’t have my political awakening until my first trip to France in 1975, when I learned that most of the French people I met knew more about the politics in California than I had ever known about politics in Europe. Reagan was President, and the French would ask me: “How could the greatest country on the planet elect a lousy “b-movie actor/wannabe cowboy” as President?

All we hear now is Go USA and We’re Number 1!

Whenever I’d visit my younger brother I’d go to the back bedroom to say hi to his three sons and they were all huddled in front of the computer monitor playing “Kill the Terrorist!”

What America has become is all about social programming… and it’s been incredibly successful. War is a video game to a good portion of our society… thanks to the Powell Doctorine that prevents war from coming home and being shown on our TV’s on the evening news.

Greg’s comment below is a prime example of how uninformed and bereft of observation and logic a person can be. Unless he has been sleepwalking for the past two years… one can’t not come to the same conclusions posted by F. Foundling above.

Kathleen T Smith/January 11, 2019

Identity politics directly caused this — shows how little people actually know, they think policy is a team sport – so you have to support your team Democrate or Republican, rather than critically looking at the actual policy. Not hard to see. People need to wake up and stop falling for this.

Kathleen T Smith/January 11, 2019

Identity politics directly caused this — shows how little people actually know, they think policy is a team sport – so you have to support your team Democrate or Republican, rather than critically looking at the actual policy. Not hard to see.

AriusArmenian/January 11, 2019

This is a result of the CIA initiated trap that the Democrats walked straight into. The CIA didn’t worry about Republicans that are already trapped into marching to the drumbeat of war to enrich US elites.

John Brennan set up a secret team conspiracy that worked with MI6. It was passed off to the FBI to take the fall – it is standard CIA operating policy to have a patsy to take a bullet to protect the CIA (like Oswald).

This was a step in the deep state conspiracy to push forward Cold War v2. We are in the next phase: US elites are taking back control of major narratives in the heads of Americans by eliminating alternative voices (and certainly anti-war voices) from the Internet.

Greenwald observed the same things on the Intercept. Here is the comment I left there:

‘The association of the Democratic Party with interventionism/imperialism is hardly novel. It goes back at least to Woodrow Wilson and has been a consistent feature of Democratic administrations in the 20th century. The recent descent of Democratic Party leadership and media into McCarthyism and vulgar conspiracism is probably a manifestation of the same degeneration of the elite or ruling class noticeable in the Republican leadership’s defeat by and submission to Trump.

It could be worse. Imagine a base composed of reactionary, racist xenophobes and warmongering, police-state liberals, and you’ve got Germany in the 1930s. Fortunately these two types are still in different camps.’

Confronted with facts like these, some people always say we need a new political party that is actually of the Left. However, given the large portion of the population which likes war and violence and craves authority and submission, what would its chances be?

Harry S Nydick/January 11, 2019

Actually, the true progressives are the only real liberals today. Check the definition of ‘liberal’ in the dictionary. Today’s liberals, the neoliberal Democrats, are actually right of center, residing in the space vacated by moderate Republicans who moved further right in search of even greater conservative oligarchic campaign funding.

Otis/January 11, 2019

This may be the only rolling comment page on the Net where I can say this without suffering the opprobrium of fellow readers–and I’ll probably still be excoriated–but here goes. For years, we’ve been told that we have “to fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here.” Well, I’m sick of fighting them over there. I recall reading this one story–I don’t remember where–in which a father holds the head of his daughter after the “shock and awe” of the invasion of Iraq. We did that! She was collateral damage, the most hellish euphemism imaginable. So, when Trump said he wanted to build a wall to keep out potential terrorists, I thought, “Okay, better to keep them out than continue to fight them over there.” So I voted for him (here’s where you can begin to hate me). But it seems a strange commitment to diversity that countenances slaughtering people over there but denounces efforts to keep them out of here. I’m largely indifferent to Mexicans and others coming across the border, though it makes sense to me that some sort of regulation is in order. Every administration to date has subscribed to that. And I agree that the wall is bad optics. But the wall seems to me to be less evil than more war abroad. Is there a way to pass through the horns of the dilemma? A third and better way than eternal war or a wall? Probably. But that choice was not offered to us in the last election. So I guess I’m a xenophobe and a bigot and God knows what else . . . but at least I don’t want to hurt anybody.

Harry S Nydick/January 11, 2019

Don’t hate you, but the wall is just a waste of money that could be used to help people in need, start to modernize and repair our infrastructure, develop universal healthcare, etc. Those who will benefit from the wall will be Trump’s crony companies and contractors who will make a small fortune, if it is built. The need for a wall is as phony as the war on drugs. What’s broken is our political system which drives all the inequities that exist in the U.S. The way to fix things is to trash our obsolete and corrupted (like software gone bad that cannot be fixed) political system, in favor of a new, radically different one that criminalizes the abuses of the current system and which puts the welfare of the people first. In fact, I can envisage such a system in which political parties are superfluous, so go extinct of their own accord.

Otis/January 11, 2019

Thanks for the thoughtful reply; as I said, I can’t think of any other online community in which one can actually say what one thinks. My fear–which I think is the fear we all have–is tyranny. And clearly the trajectory of our State is toward tyranny–surveillance, propaganda, perpetual war, demonization of the Other–all are the hallmarks of the decline into totalitarian state control. And perhaps the wall is a boondoggle–my skepticism is as deep as your own. I was just pointing out the inconsistency of the Left in their desire to kill folks over there while they protest keeping them out over here. That’s just weird! And I agree that there are just as many inconsistencies on the Right. What I can’t imagine is, who will be be trashing the old system and establishing the new? Granted, get rid of the old plutocrats and kleptocrats and war mongers on both sides–who will take their place, and why should we trust them? Has nuclear proliferation made such a new system impossible? Can you direct me to a book or manifesto that makes a plausible case that such a transference is even possible? In the meantime, I’ll just keep reading Caitlin because she loves the truth!

F. Foundling/January 12, 2019

I agree that starting wars and killing people is far, far worse than stopping immigration. However, the mainstream idea is that they want to kill only bad folks, i.e. folks who want to kill or enslave other folks, and they want to let in normal good folks, who just want to live and work in the US. These things are not necessarily inconsistent. The question is whether it really is OK to kill these folks, legally and in terms of consequences, and whether they really are that bad, relatively speaking. It is also debatable whether it’s a good idea to let in a completely unlimited influx of people, no matter how good they are. . What strikes me as an inconsistency in the ‘liberal’ and ‘left’ interventionist/imperialist camp is recognising the importance of equality before the law, due process and accountability in the relations between the citizens of your own country, but not in the relations between countries; or recognising the profound infilitration of your government and media by self-interested forces, even in spite of your supposed ability to hold them to account as a voter or a consumer, and yet trusting them to be truthful and benevolent with respect to foreign citizens, who can’t even hold them to account in the limited way in which you can.

The political system is not broken–it’s fixed, to benefit those that profit from war, poverty and exploitation. The U.S. NEVER uses our tax dollars to help anyone but those at the top. The few crumbs the people get are only thrown to keep us from rising up. It has worked for a long, long time, along with the fairy tale that Democrats are the party of the working class. My question is–how bad does it have to get?

F. Foundling/January 11, 2019

‘Few’ crumbs or ‘NEVER’? Even the US government, in spite of all the right-wing anti-welfare propaganda and policies through the decades, still provides things like free public schools, scholarships for poor students, relief for victims of disasters and so on and so on. By all means feel free to rise up and get more than these ‘crumbs’, but don’t claim that taxes have no positive functions and effects.

luke/January 12, 2019

Great point. I don’t care if everyone says you’re basket of chodes, You’re alright by me. More people need to focus on minor linguistical discrepancies while ignoring the broad strokes and intent of the expression of others. And more people need to speak out for the IRS. To the people who say that only petty chode farmers engage in this kind of diatribe and the US taxpayer and their collective apathy is ultimately responsible for about 5 million murders in the last forty years alone, I say it is inconsistent to use the numeral ‘5’ while spelling ‘forty’ and chode isn’t a real word, so there.

The wall is not to keep out terrorists. It is not true that the people we call ”terrorists” walk through the desert to come through the border with Mexico. And the US is not fighting terrorists in the Middle East, they are using the US military, which is publicly funded, to secure profits for private corporations, especially the oil companies. Most of the ”terrorists” are actually agents of US spy agencies, and the only effective ones are those supplied with guns or explosives by those agencies. And they are, indeed, mostly ”over there”, because they are used by the US ruling class to terrorize populations in countries who have resources our owners covet. The FBI has made an occasional habit of finding disgruntled youth here, radicalizing them, promising them weapons, and then busting them and announcing “We foiled another terrorist plot”. The people coming over the border are solicited by corporations in the US, to provide cheap labor, which drives down wages and working conditions for the workers already struggling to survive in the US. This is nothing new, as they continually point out to us. “We are all descendants of immigrants”. Well, yes, we are. Capitalism was built by immigrants in this country, millions and millions of them. As they died off, in the mines, mills, factories and railroads, or as they organized for better working conditions, they were replaced with endless desperate people who left their homes and families in the original countries trying to find work in the USA. A more accurate way to describe us is ”descended from those immigrants who survived long enough to reproduce”. The wall is a boondoggle, which will stop animal migration, including butterflies, while rapacious capitalism will still import cheap labor, wall or no wall.

Sally/January 11, 2019

Very good information, Caitlin. I hope some progressives who are supporting the Democrats get it. We need a third party which will stand for peaceful resolution of disputes and take on the broken system that we now have.

Joe Dolan/January 11, 2019

I think that part of the explanation for American’s lack of outrage and abhorrence of perpetual war is the intuitive understanding that without military conquest America would not endure as a major world power. After all, America is founded on the theft of land, murder of indigenous people and the rape of the natural world. Once Uncle Sam had gone as far East and West as he could there was only one logical place to go – overseas. If America was to withdraw from the Middle East the whole petrodollar military industrial complex would collapse and this would not only impact corporations and weapons producers, Joe Public’s lifestyle would take a nose dive – no endless credit, no cheap gas, no war profits to grease the wheels. So maybe self delusion is easier than taking a look at reality.

Ishkabibble/January 11, 2019

Exactly right. The Elite’s political slaves in DC know this, but they cannot talk about this awful truth in public. These slaves will continue to support USD hegemony at “whatever it takes” level, including nuclear war.

Roger Holzapfel/January 11, 2019

Reminds me of an old Grocho Marks movie. He plays a politician and when asked a question by a news reporter he sings and dances to the verses “Whatever it is I’m against it.” Dems oppose anything Trump does in a knee jerk fashion. No need to think just oppose. Bernie supporters turned into resistance turned into elite agenda supporters. Masterfully done, unfortunately. How will dems react to peacenics in the next election cycle? Will brains explode?

inforebelscum/January 11, 2019

The reason why the left is so easily manipulated by TPTB is because the one underlying factor of leftist thought is hatred. Blind hatred, as exposed by TDS. And hate is the most easily manipulated emotion. That is why TPTB always use the left to further TPTB’s agenda i.e. world domination.

Orlando J. Valerino/January 11, 2019

John/January 11, 2019

You truly are clueless. The Left is not easily manipulated by TPTB, you seem to be confusing Democrats and Liberals, who as proponents of Capitalism are, by definition, right wingers, with the left (which is, by definition, anti-Capitalist.)

As far as your nonsensical claim that blind hatred is somehow the underlying idea behind leftist thought, when you look at leftists like the Berrigan Brothers, Dorothy Day, Emma Goldman, etc, I would be really interested as to how your head does not explode from the composting bullshit that would be needed to actually hold the belief you claim.

inforebelscum/January 11, 2019

John, if it is not hatred that drives the left then why is the left so violent?

And if the left is not easily manipulated by TPTB then why is the left in such great alignment with TPTB’s goal of a One World Socialist Government? They are either being manipulated or are in cahoots with those they claim to be against.

Thank you Caitlin for your work. Excuse me, I don’t understand why the US military, uninvited is in Syria; they are occupying the oil rich areas and apparently rich agricultural areas. I feel so sorry for the Syrians having their country destroyed ; Assad was targeted long before ISIS, US & ally funded head choppers. I am so ashamed of Australia’s involvement.

jared/January 11, 2019

It’s about oil (as ridiculous as that may sound). KSA wanted oil pipeline to europe through Syria. KSA does not play well with Syria/Assad. They could not reach agreement. That and the neowarmongers want to destroy all civilization in the muslim sphere so they will be dependant on us. And the MIC profits from all this. Plus it pleases the AIPAC lobby.

I was against the wars before they started but after a close family member returned badly wounded by an IED and I spent the better part of four years deeply involved with homeless and wounded young veterans my anti-war stance has only hardened. After seeing firsthand the damage done to these young people, many who signed up mainly because they had no better options going into adulthood, there is no pro-war candidate that will ever get my support.

That said, I lived in NYC and saw the towers fall from my Brooklyn rooftop on 9/11. It was a traumatic experience in many ways that still impact me deeply. But, when the war began in Iraq and I watched “Shock & Awe” on tv I had a breakdown and sobbed. I didn’t cry after 9/11 whether I was numbed, trying to be stoic because I didn’t personally lose anyone, or whatever. But seeing that destruction in Iraq, destruction I’d protested and spoken against, done in my name to others on a larger scale broke me in many ways.

The returning vets I’ve known who will never be healed, and the destruction I witnessed on 9/11 are but a ripple compared to what our nation does to others daily.

The fact that so many on “The Left” would support this crap makes me sick. We need to bring back the draft. War needs to be personal for all Americans, not a spectator sport.

Orlando J. Valerino/January 11, 2019

wapiti/January 12, 2019

Yes drafting citizens into needless war is slavery. BUT to shake the core of our citizens against these endless, needless, MIC wars a draft – in these times when the masses’ sons AND daughters would be drafted? OMG. what better way to wake up the sleeping than to tell mom and dad that their son Jason AND their daughter Jeanette would be shipped overseas.

inforebelscum/January 12, 2019

Caitlin: “Trump’s occasional positive impulses, like the agenda to withdraw US troops from Syria and Afghanistan …” . Not sure this was a “positive impulse” at all. . After criticism (which could/should’ve been anticipated) Trump has back-tracked from his immediate withdrawal. Graham says it has been “paused”, Trump now says it will be “very deliberate, very orderly”, and Bolton says there must be guarantees for safety of the Kurds. In any case, it appears that returning northeastern Syria to …. Syria, is not contemplated. . What might explain Trump’s change of heart? . On Christmas, only days after announcing Trump announced his withdrawal from Syria, Israel conducted an aerial attack on Syria that put commercial airliners in jeopardy. If Syria had been tricked into shooting down commercial airliner, Trump would’ve been perfectly positioned to make a massive commitment of troops to Syria and the Middle East in general. The public would’ve believe that this PEACEMAKER was reluctantly forced to “defend our values” via a renewed attack on Syria. . Israel had conducted a similar manuever ONLY WEEKS BEFORE when they tricked SAA into downing a Russia IL-20. Why would they do the same AGAIN – this time with civilian airliners?!? . PS It is clear that Trump’s “positive impulses” in other areas are anything but. He said he was against TPP but has but TPP clauses into the renegotiated North American Trade Agreement. He participated in a Summit with North Korean leader Kim un Jong but has not followed through. And there are plenty of other examples.

ROD SANDERS/January 11, 2019

“What might explain Trump’s change of heart?” . You would do well to think real hard on that one. I couldn’t follow the logic of your comments. It appears that you believe Trump has a lot more power than he actually does.

Sorry it wasn’t clear. Here’s a quick summary: . I speculate that Trump might have ordered the troops home as a public relations stunt in the days before a false flag (the Israeli attempt to trick Syrian forces into downing a commercial airliner)? . When the Israeli attempt failed, Trump – who didn’t REALLY want the troops to leave Syria – had to backtrack, thus the “pause” and delay in removing troops.

You’re overthinking Trump. He’s an immature narcissist and needs positive affirmations for his ego and any trace of ideals he has are second to that.

He doesn’t care about the wall as anything more than a catch phrase that brings applause but his favorite news celebs castrated him on TV for not following through he’s made it a “crisis”.

Similarly, he knows these wars are a crock but every time he wants to do something he gets ravaged on TV and wilts.

Also, as long as he plays the establishment game he’s a “useful idiot” they’ll keep around. He can trash talk the CIA and FBI all he wants and they welcome the distraction and embrace by anti-Trumpers. If he goes against them and their cash cows he’ll become a “dangerous idiot” and they’ll come down on him. He’s got decades of crooked business deals they have info on. There’s a reason they’ve not made it public yet. Blackmail.

The Russian plane wasn’t shot down by Israel. It was shot down by Syria, and Russia blamed Israel. As for the attempt to repeat that on Christmas Day, I agree that it was an attempt by the Deep State to overturn the withdrawal of troops from Syria, but I see no reason to believe that Trump was in on the plan.

Orlando J. Valerino/January 11, 2019

Trump has been the ultimate tool for the Zionist. The Anglo-Zionist empire haven’t had such a useful puppet since Woodrow Wilson. It is irrelevant how much Trump knows or does not know of any ‘plan’ by the Anglo-Zionist.

Ishkabibble/January 11, 2019

There have been forensic analyses performed after WW1, WW2, Korean War and Vietnam War, which were intended to figure out why those wars came to be, so that such wars could be prevented in the future. WW1 was “the war to end all war”, but it wasn’t. It was the first half of WW2 in which the so-called allies included Russia. In just a few short years after the end of WW2, Russia was an enemy of “the west” — nations who were colonial powers who required colonies to fork over their resources and products. Vietnam was handed back over to France and the Vietnamese struggle against its colonial rulers shifted into high gear to finally defeat not only the French, but “America” as well. .. The people of the US today are not mentally capable of facing what their USA really is because of the 24/7 brainwashing they have been subjected to from Day 1 of their existence. They and their government are so convinced that they should be the exceptional nation to “lead” the world that they do not realize that they are behaving in a way that is going to INEVITABLY lead to a nuclear war. The MSM talking heads may not realize it, but they are preparing their audiences to not only accept war, but to DEMAND it. They are the enablers and cheerleaders for the upcoming war. .. The Elite now realize that they are going to LOSE the capitalism competition to Russia and China which is why the US is using tariffs, financial war/sanctions and outright threats of military attack to try to delay its inevitable defeat. They’re desperate. The Elite need a war to give their investments in war coporations the profit they require, or there’s going to be yet another “financial crisis” which, this time, the Fed will not be able to print its way out of. Here’s the conversation taking place in Washington today.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXZF6DwKvCI Get ready for nuclear war, folks –that means plan a relatively easy “way out” before the mass madness that will inevitably follow the first strikes.

wapiti/January 12, 2019

Orlando J. Valerino/January 11, 2019

‘This didn’t happen by itself, and it didn’t happen by accident. American liberals didn’t just spontaneously start thinking endless military occupations of sovereign nations is a great idea yesterday, nor have they always been so unquestioningly supportive of the agendas of the US war machine. No, Democrats support the unconscionable bloodbaths that their government is inflicting around the world because they have been deliberately, methodically paced into that belief structure by an intensive mass media propaganda campaign.’

This is the key: propaganda works and the mind of the masses are as malleable as putty.

What the folks like Johnstone seem to not understand yet, is that Trump was selected for this very reason. While Sandernistas were concerned about election nonsense, the real truth was being spread by WikiLeaks in the DNC leaks and Pedesta leaks which ultimately was warped into Pizzagate is why Clinton wasn’t given the throne and WikiLeaks taken down back in 2016.

ROD SANDERS/January 11, 2019

“What the folks like Johnstone seem to not understand yet, is that Trump was selected for this very reason.” . Really. What reason is that? The best I came up with for “this very reason” is that “propaganda works.” Does that make sense? And Pizzagate? Maybe my decoder ring is malfunctioning. Actually I couldn’t figure out what the entire last paragraph meant. Sorry.

Orlando J. Valerino/January 11, 2019

It is not my fault that you haven’t paid attention or just recently ‘got woke’. People who were aware long before 2016 know what is happening. The Trump-Clinton charade is just the latest act of the political theatre show that is meant to entertain and distract the masses.

elkojohn/January 11, 2019

Truth is, humans are very vulnerable to brain-washing narratives. Narratives such as biblical concepts of god, ”my country right or wrong” nationalism, U.S. exceptionalism, and the unquestioning belief in the ”two-party-only” political system, with its monopolistic-corporate, tinkles-down-on-you capitalism – these narratives are particularly appealing to U.S. voters.

Orlando J. Valerino/January 11, 2019

So true, Controlling the narrative is nothing new, religion has been used for this purpose by rulers for centuries. Controlling the way people think and behave is the ultimate point of the panopticon surveillance data gathering police state. From Sri, Alexa, Google Hub, people are literally buying the devices of enslavement, to the police cameras popping up all over the cities in the world. The powers that shouldn’t be want to control your mind and body and eradicate a good portion of the population of this planet. Until a critical mass of humans truly understand this, we are just lemmings falling off a cliff staring at our screens.

Linda D Gentsch/January 11, 2019

Has it occurred to you, Cait, that the elites mostly call themselves democrats and act like oligarchs who see it as their duty to counsel the American people on how they should think and act? There is really only one party, I believe Hillary called it, the deplorables, the rest are the elites who run the show. The folks behaved very badly when electing donald trump. But that will shortly be corrected . . . one way or another. Right? Isn’t that how it works?

If you don't remember thinking much about Russia prior to the 2016, and now you think about it a lot more, that's your first clue that you've been propagandized. It's the same country it was in 2015. The threat it poses hasn't changed, only the narrative has.

"Whenever America celebrates Martin Luther King Jr. Day we should remind ourselves that it is a known, undisputed fact that the Federal Bureau of Investigation engineered a psyop to manipulate one of the world’s greatest minds into committing suicide." #MLKDay2019 #MLKDay

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"NewsGuard is led by some of the most virulently pro-imperialist individuals in America and its agenda to shore up narrative control for the ruling power establishment is clear, writes Caitlin Johnstone."

NewsGuard is led by some of the most virulently pro-imperialist individuals in America and its agenda to shore up narrative control for the ruling power establishment is clear, writes Caitlin Johnstone. By Caitlin Johnstone CaitlinJohnstone.com The frenzied, hysterical Russia narrative being prom ... See more

Excerpt from "Fight The Establishment’s Narratives By Getting Clear On Your Own":

Anti-establishment movements are a mess. Whether they’re left-wing or right-wing, whether they’re statist or anarchist, whether they’re organized or decentralized, whether they place emphasis on official or unofficial narratives, any circle of people who are interested in opposing the status quo on a deep, meaningful level almost invariably find themselves significantly bogged down by confusion, paranoia, infighting, and misdirected use of energy.

Every day, for example, I get people in my inbox and social media notifications telling me I shouldn’t quote or share anything from this or that lefty journalist or anti-establishment figure because they’ve said something “problematic” at some point or have some kind of association with some aspect of the establishment. Rather than simply using narrative-disrupting tools wherever they come from to fight the establishment narrative control machine, I’m encouraged to isolate myself to the extremely narrow spectrum of voices which agree with my exact worldview perfectly. This kind of paranoid, self-cannibalizing mentality is rife throughout most anti-establishment circles.

This happens for a number of reasons, including the fact that the ruling power establishment will infiltrate dissident movements that it perceives as a threat with the intent of sowing confusion and division. But the underlying reason anti-establishment circles so often find themselves getting crushed by their own weight is ultimately because life itself is confusing and difficult to understand.

Hardly anyone holds a lucid and steady awareness of just how much of society is comprised of mental narrative. Most people live their lives under the unquestioned assumption that when they are moving around in the world, speaking, acting, forming opinions, having ideas etc, they are interacting with something that resembles objective reality. The truth of the matter is that most of the things which draw people’s attention in their day-to-day experience, whether it’s names, titles, news stories, political parties, economics, history, philosophy, religion or what have you, consist entirely of mental noises firing off inside human skulls.

Excerpt from "Fight The Establishment’s Narratives By Getting Clear On Your Own":

You might think it’s a big jump to go from chatting about the sociopolitical dynamics within dissident movements to making vaguely Buddhist-sounding observations about human thought, but it’s really not. The reason our species is in a mess right now, and thus the reason movements exist which seek to change the status quo, is because so much of life is dictated entirely by made-up mental narratives which can be easily controlled by the powerful, and hardly anyone fully grasps this. If they did, the revolution against the establishment would very smoothly and quickly succeed.

Scientific research has found that astronauts suffer problems with coordination, perception and cognition when they are unable to determine which way is up in space. There is no “up” or “down” when you’re outside the gravitational pull that our bodies are adapted to, so its absence sends our whole system out of whack. Navigating a society that is made of mental narrative is very much the same; if you don’t know which way’s up, you’ll get lost and confused. Before you can see the narrative matrix clearly, you might be aware that some narratives serve power and swat at them while you’re spinning through space, but you won’t have any solid ground on which to orient yourself for the purpose of forming a clear path forward toward a healthy and harmonious world.

Your first and foremost task as a revolutionary, therefore, is to find solid ground on which to plant your feet while operating within a swirling sea of narratives and counter-narratives. Without this you’ll find yourself expending energy on ineffectual agendas, chasing shadows, attacking friends and advancing the interests of the enemy as you stumble around trying to fight a threat you can’t even see clearly. You’ve got to figure out for yourself which way’s up.